Of extractions

            Yes I have been a long time in putting my finger to the keyboard! The heady feeling after the MeraTerahRRRun could not mask the pain in the tooth and the foot for long. The tooth took the pole position and forgetting the pipe dream of completing a marathon by running back I ran for the first offer of a drop back home. The next two days were unmitigated pain and the added shame of hiding from meeting the loved one’s eyes, the dreaded ‘Why don’t you see the dentist?’

            Steeling myself with the thought that the dentist would take an x-ray and give some antibiotics to soften up the tooth before going at it, I proceeded to the hospital on Monday morning, talk of Monday blues! Knowing a Doctor friend and having fixed up with the dentist in advance, I was fast tracked into the ante room to be greeted by the tooth fairy (the dentist’s assistant!). The Doctor sent my Doctor friend away and sent me to the Dentist’s vacant chair in the other room. I tried to distract myself with the photos messages about dental hygiene while waiting for the Oral exam. I tried reciting a mantra which I usually do to keep time during my long runs and deep breathing to calm myself.

            The Doctor came with the tooth fairy in attendance and after a brief ‘how do you do’, to which I am sure he knew the answer looking at my pain grimaced face, he peeped into my mouth. The result was not good my molar tooth. He gave it no chance for redemption. To think that I had suffered so much pain to get a Root Canal for that ingrate tooth and so much money to give it a silver crown (I could have done better to get a trinket for my wife or daughter instead!).

            Now our Dentist was a man of action and I would call him the Quick Gun Murugan for what he did next, he pronounced, do you want it removed right away? Fed up with the pain it had given me, forgetting the long relationship we have had, I gave short shrift to the due process and acquiesced to co-operate with the Doctor. He held out a thin syringe filled with an anesthetic (he did not know that I am a regular with that drug, having just had my hearts fill on my toe for the stitching there only last week!), a few pokes later and a little general talk for the drug to take effect he was ready to do the trick.

            A sharp pain later (which I thought was the loose crown coming off!), I saw through my bleary eyes the tooth fairy showing my tooth and smiling showing her set of pearly whites for effect. The enormity of what I had gone through did not strike me till later when I was riding back to office for my meeting which I had reschedule by an hour (won’t the executive member love to have a silent finance member in the tender committee meeting!). I listened to the do’s and don’ts and collected my booty of medicines and made my escape after thanking my Doctor friend (She was shocked to find that I had got an extraction done so soon!). The entire operation had taken only 10 minutes including the sweating time in the Doctor’s ante room.

            The enormity of what I had submitted to struck me when the anesthetic started wearing off on my train ride back to office. If the tooth had been crooked, the Doctor could have ended up in mauling my lower jaw in trying to extract the errant tooth. I only consoled myself by thinking that my freshly tonsured head and a khadi shirt must have given the Doctor the hope that there was not a crooked bone in my body and I thanked God for it!

            Being a Vegan, the one perk of the painful extraction, the endless cups of Ice-cream were also denied to me. I messaged my Jeeves (read my P.A.) to arrange supplies of lots of ice to numb the massacred and bereaved gum. He must surely have doubted my Gandhian ways to have asked for ice-cubes during office hours. I reached home to a hero’s welcome even if I had lost a tooth and a decorated one at that. At work I must make up for the loss in biting powers by enhancing my barking!

            To cut the long story short, the next two days were fast recovery made sipping on ice cold water. I was surprisingly not much in pain even after the effect of the anesthetic wore off only emphasizing how much pain the infected tooth must have been causing me. As I go to press all is well in my mouth except that I have lost a molar and probably the ability to chew my cud to that extent (that I know is a vital loss for an ageing person!)